


When Everything Changed (Redux)

by AParisianShakespearean



Series: Dragon Age One Shots [8]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Awkward Flirting, DA2 era Cullen, F/M, Questioning Beliefs, Templar Cullen, retool of original work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 20:14:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11997153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AParisianShakespearean/pseuds/AParisianShakespearean
Summary: While in the Wounded Coast, Cullen has an encounter he's not going to forget anytime soon.Note: This is a reworking of another work.





	When Everything Changed (Redux)

**Author's Note:**

> So on tumblr it's Cullen appreciation week and I decided to rewrite this piece I wrote about a week ago for day one, all about templar cullen. I like it much better now, and the original will probably get deleted.

The morning before everything changed, he woke up, and everything made sense. Everything was all right in the world. Everything was where it should be.

It was a nightmare that drew him from the fade, though that was to be expected. They would never allude him. At the very least his rank allowed him his own private quarters, and only the walls of his room in the Gallows bore witness to his cries and helpless murmurs of stop, no, leave me. Yet he woke and the memories flooded back. He wasn’t back there anymore, and he would never have to endure that again, so long as he fulfilled his sacred duties. He reminded himself of that as he shook the nightmare of Uldred and Kinloch away, washed, and donned his uniform as ceremoniously as he always did. He did so because it was what he had to do. What he would always have to do, to make the world safe.

He caught a glimpse of the insignia engraved in his breastplate before he left. It may has well have been etched onto his very soul. He chose this, and he would see it through. See everything through. He woke up that morning and he knew that.

Though he knew, though he would never speak it to anyone, save in the private recess of his thoughts, that it was getting harder to believe that everything was right. But what choice did he have? There was no choice. Only duty.

Meredith had called him into her office that morning once he was up and about. Nothing unusual. After numerous reports and sightings, we have confirmed the location of the hiding apostate, she informed him. If they resist, kill them. If not, bring them back. Take Samson with you.

They always resist, Samson said before they departed, though Cullen knew it was what Samson always told Meredith.

They arrived at the Coast to cave where the apostates were supposedly hiding. Bloody caves here all look the same, Samson complained as he went one way, and Cullen the other. It wasn’t wise to split up but Samson had insisted. There was only one, he said. One would be easy enough and we’ve certainly taken enough lyrium to dispel all their magic. So Cullen traversed through the darkness, sword and shield in hand. Someone was there, that was abundantly clear. The torches lit the way, and the farther he traversed, the light of a fire became more visible. It seemed whoever this apostate was, they wanted to be found.

He heard voices, whispers, but he caught a few words. Templar, may find us. Need to check. It was coming from a voice distinctly feminine. So there was more than one, he realized, quickly wishing Samson didn’t insist on splitting up as he did. At the very least Cullen caught the irony of the moment. These mages certainly didn’t realize how right they were.

When he heard the light footsteps he made the plan. He would dispel the area and tell them to surrender. He would bind their hands and then take them back. He wasn’t sure what Meredith would decree when they took them back. Tranquility, perhaps if they had escaped from another Circle. Perhaps it was better than death. Surely if Samson had found them he would kill them, and perhaps it was better that Cullen had arrived first. Surely living, even if that life was only a shell and hollow, was better than being cut down here and now…

Later, bitterly he would laugh as he remembered the time before. He would laugh because he woke up that morning and he knew his duty and what that insignia he wore meant. That was before he saw…

But was it?

Dumbstruck he stared. It couldn’t…it couldn’t really be…

The woman appeared before him. Fire pooling in her palm. Circle robe. Same dumbstruck expression that he wore. This woman couldn’t really be…

Cliodna?

It was impossible. The woman from the book of stories his mother used to put him to bed with couldn’t really come to life from the page, and be this woman no less. Not her, not this mage…

But Maker’s breath she was looking at him with all the same determination as Cliodna, the woman who had searched the lowlands, looking for her lover. Everything stilled and he suddenly wasn’t a templar any longer, just a boy on his mother’s lap, begging for the story of Cliodna again. He thought that story book and Cliodna long gone, just a figment of his past. Never would he ever expect waking up and beholding this fragment of his past come to life from the page.

Cliodna searched for her lover after he had gone missing in the lowalnds. This woman must have searched for something as well. She wouldn’t have stared at him with such conviction otherwise. What did this woman search for? Freedom perhaps, it was what all apostates wanted, and exactly what they couldn’t have.

If she wasn’t a mage, if he wasn’t a templar, if he didn’t have his duty…

Why wasn’t he dispelling the area?

They stared, neither one so much as breathing in this space that they created, the space where the apostate and templar lay in wait, something more than distrust and blind hatred tangible in the air. Perhaps, he thought, it was fascination, or at least a mutual unwillingness to strike. However, just as Cullen kept his sword drawn and shield ready, the fire kept pulling in her hands, though the glow was growing dimmer and dimmer.

The fire may have dimmed in her palm, but her eyes, blue as the deepest sea, grew brighter. Such a contradiction that shouldn’t even have been possible: fire in the sea of blue. Yet there it was, and exactly like Cliodna. She had every idiosyncrasy.

Cullen couldn’t help but further assess the woman’s appearance. Her hair was a dark brown, long and to her back, loose and unruly. Once again, just like Cliodna. She wore the standard circle robe, blue and unshapely as it was, though upon further inspection Cullen could see she filled out the robe rather well. She was rather tall, and her hips were well defined, as was her…

_You are…what are you…?_

The base and low thoughts ceased. What was he doing? Maker what was he doing? He should have dispelled her, and the others that were laying in wait. Perhaps they were waiting to ambush him. If Samson had found her first he would have killed her for daring to draw fire upon him. Yet Cullen was struck with something. The first was rather obvious. If this was an ambush something would have surely happened by now. The second however, was something that made his heart pound a million beats.

He woke up that morning, and he what he should have done. He knew that if a mage ever dared to reign fire upon him, even so much as have it in their palms, ready to attack, he would have to slay them. Of course, that was before he knew what fate would bring along his path. When Cullen woke up that morning, he would have never known he would see this woman, mage, being that so perfectly emulated Cliodna, and allow his sacred duty to fall to the wayside, crumpling to the ground.

Maker’s breath, he did not want to strike her.

 _It isn’t about wanting to or not_ , he reminded himself. _This is what you chose! This is your duty._

Did she have some sort of power over him that made him not strike? They are insidious, Meredith often said.

But Cullen felt nothing in the air. No magic or none of the tell tale signs of lyrium tingling in his veins. The only power she held over him was what lay ingrained in her eyes.

And he would not strike her.

Hands trembling, he sheathed his sword. Slowly in turn, the fire in the woman’s hand dimmed until it was gone. The torch nearby illuminated her face however, the curve of her jawline, the upward flex of her right eyebrow, and the quizzical expression.

“Who are you?” she breathed, her voice a deep contralto.

“Cullen,” he said, surprising himself. “I’m…I’m a templar.”

A look crossed her face, one that distinctly read as, r _eally stupid?_ At the very least she gave him the curtesy not to say anything. Instead she crossed her arms, and offered him her name.

Her name was Lydia.

“Lydia,” he repeated, the name sounding strange on his tongue. “It…you should…”

Dammit, what was he doing? What was he…?

“Are you going to take me to the Circle? To Meredith?”

“I…I don’t know,” he croaked.

“Take me, fine,” she insisted suddenly. “Take me now and I surrender.”

“Wasn’t there others with you?”

“Don’t take them. Take only me and I’ll accept whatever punishment, but do not take them.”

What was he doing? Maker…what? He couldn’t stand here and bargain with her! “I can’t—”

“Please,” Lydia interrupted. “Please let them go. My friend is pregnant and, if you send her to the Circle she’ll be killed, or made tranquil, and…that can’t happen. Want to send me back, kill me or make me tranquil, fine. But please…if you don’t I’ll—”

Fire erupted in her palm, burning brightly. There it was. His reason to strike. He had to do it. Here and now. Here and—

But he could see it in her eyes. She did not want to do what she had threatened.

Fine then, he thought, and the two continued to share the same space, neither one willing to make the first move. Perhaps this wasn’t a cause to strike. He could carry her back to Kirkwall and back to the Circle. They all could see that the Circle wasn’t so cruel after all. Let it be known that templars showed mercy to those who were willing to surrender. But he couldn’t let the others go if he took her back to the Circle. It was ridiculous, preposterous. Either he killed her, took the others back, or they all died. Or she went to the Circle in chains.

“I…”

“Please,” Lydia said, once more. “I…I know you have to be one of the good ones. You didn’t kill me when you had the chance, and Maker…I don’t want to kill you.”

“I know,” he admitted.

“Then let me—”

“Just go.”

The words hung in the air. Did he say them? Did he really just…

He said it and did not take it back. But onto the Maker and the holy Andraste, he would swear that night. He did not want to take it back.

“Go,” he orders, edge creeping into his words. “Leave this place.”

“But—”

“Take your friends and go.”

She stared, mouth agape. “Go,” he commanded once again. “Go before my companion arrives. If you flee now he won’t find you and you’ll live.”

She blinked, unbelieving. “I don’t—why are you sparing me?”

“Go!”

He made a fist so hard his knuckles must have turned white underneath his steel gauntlets. Moments ticked by that felt like hours before she disappeared and emerged from the back of the cave again with the two others. A man, and an the elven woman, heavy with child. She had been telling the truth.

“Leave the Coast,” Cullen said. “My companion will want to search. You mustn’t linger. Go now.”

The elf and the man didn’t need to be told twice, but Lydia remained for a moment. He wanted to scream at her not to linger anymore. Samson would arrive and…

Samson would arrive and know what he had done.

“Go now!” Cullen ordered. “Maker’s breath go before I change my mind!”

The elf was tugging at Lydia’s robe. One last look into his eyes.

“Thank you,” she muttered.

And then as quickly as his eyes met the sea blue of hers, she was gone.

 

* * *

 

 

Meredith told him not to fail again when they returned, and when she left him, Cullen laughed bitterly.

He never would have suspected, when he woke up that morning, how that woman, Lydia, the woman who reminded him of Cliodna would…

No, he didn’t actually think that…

Mages cannot be treated like people. Hawke would often berate him with, repeating the words he had told her the first day they met. But Lydia wasn’t a mage. She was, but she wasn’t just a mage. She was Cliodna. She was determined, and she was the first person who looked at him in a thousand years, and saw someone other than the templar.

It wasn’t Lydia, that made everything change. He understood that later. Yet it was his first moment with her that he realized that everything had already changed longed ago.

If he would not stop it, then who would?

 

* * *

 

 

He was at Haven when he saw her again.

He was scanning the requisition requests when Cliodna caught his eyes, but when he took a second look, he realized it wasn’t Cliodna at all. Rather instead, it was Lydia.

She was working with Sabine and the other healers, and he wondered how long it would take her to recognize him. Maybe it was ridiculous of him, self-centered even to think she would recognize him.

She came to him, soon after though. She was the one sent to deliver a few elfroot potions to his tent.

She stared wide eyed. “You’re…you’re…”

“You remember,” he observed, realizing that she did, indeed, know who he was.

“Cullen,” she began. “Why did you save us? I read Tale of the Champion. I know what you said. Why did you think we could be saved?”

He sighed. He wasn’t going to deny he didn’t say those things, but when he thought of admitting why he saved her…

In truth he didn’t know all the answers. He thought there were a thousand reasons, and perhaps a thousand more he didn’t dare to admit even to himself. She made him remember, that was the most prominent. For once, he looked at someone and didn’t remember the melancholy laden in f his past. Only the good. Cliodna, his mother telling him the story. Home. He knew she was a mage when he met her, and yet even if it was for one moment, it didn’t matter.

But it was longer than a moment, and when the moment didn’t pass, he knew he wanted to let her go. So for the first time in ages, he did what he wanted, and not what was bound by his duty. He did it, even if it meant he would burn because of it. All because she made it possible for him to remember that which he thought was lost. Her, Lydia, this woman, radiant, and almost like the sun.

She was like the sun, standing there in his tent. An interesting beauty, someone artists would no doubt chose as their model for illustrations of ethereal maidens, much like Cliodna.

He looked at her then, and wondered.

Did he save her that day, because he found her beautiful?

Skin kissed by the sun. Luxuriant dark hair. Eyes the deepest blue. Earnest and real. Perhaps the realest thing he had ever seen.

The morning he woke up, the morning he met her, he didn’t know she would never leave his thoughts.

He knew the answer to his question.

“I…I don’t know,” he said instead, breaking the silence. “I just thought…”

She put her hands on her hips. “Did you think I was pretty?”

“I…no,” he stammered quickly, feeling caught. “I mean…Oh maker, it’s not that you aren’t, but—”

She laughed, and the sound was so foreign, and so surprising in regards to everything that had happened at the conclave and Haven, that it became a melody Cullen wasn’t sure he would hear again. “I’m only teasing,” she said, when her laughter quelled, and he was struck by how much he wanted to hear her laughter again.

“Why didn’t you want to attack me?” he asked in turn. “You had a ball of fire ready.”

“You looked…you looked sad that day,” she replied. I don’t know. you didn’t even look like you wanted to attack.”

Maker’s breath, was she going to see right through him? “I was sad,” he admitted, scratching the back of his neck. “And…misguided. I treated mages with distrust, sometimes without cause. I will…try not to do so here.”

“It seems you’ve stepped in the right direction that day.”

“Did you three, make it out alright?” Cullen found himself asking. “The child?”

“Alive and well.

“That is…good to hear.”

Blue eyes like the sea peered at him. “I thank you, you know. I want you to know that.”

She truly was earnest. He didn’t think “you’re welcome” was appropriate for all the wrong he did in his past, and what could never be absolved. He only nodded.

The silence that came between them next was comfortable, as the two shared the same space. Not as a mage and templar, but as a man and a woman.

“I’m not a templar anymore,” he said, mirroring the trite, obvious remark he made those years ago. “And…you’re here in the Inquisition to help,” he said. “We are…grateful for your assistance.”

“No, you’re not a templar anymore,” she repeated. “Even though I’m still a mage. But here at least, in the Inquisition, I can help. That’s all that matters now. Not our pasts. And I promise I won’t tease you anymore. I mean, only if you want it, and…Oh Maker…” she blushed an angry red, and he was struck by how sweet the pop of pink looked on her cheeks. “I should go now anyway,” she garbled. “Sabine needs help. I’ll see you soon Commander Cullen.”

She left after that, leaving the smell of jasmine in his tent. Strange, to smell jasmine, but not entirely unwelcome.

Lydia, Cullen thought. Mage, Cliodna, and the sun. The woman that made him realize that everything had changed.

Yet Cullen had a suspicion that something else was also about to change.


End file.
